Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (36 page)

The world exploded into color around her once more, and Caina fell towards the ground.

She screamed.

“Command the wind!” Samnirdamnus’s voice thundered inside of her skull. “Command the wind, and it shall obey you!” 

Something inside Caina shifted, and she reached for the wind around her, though she knew not how.

And to her astonishment, the wind obeyed. 

Caina spun over the streets of the Alqaarin Quarter and then shot upwards, rocketing back towards where the
Sandstorm
flew towards the city. 

The wind of her passage tore the shadow-cloak from her shoulders and sent it spinning away.

###

Morgant blinked in surprise, staring at the valikon lying upon the deck.

He had never expected to die on a flying ship carried aloft by djinn, but life was just full of little surprises. 

Certainly, Caina must not have expected to die like that, losing her balance and tumbling to her death from a flying ship. Annarah looked stricken, but Morgant found he felt only…cold. Cold and numb. 

He had always known this would end in disaster and death, hadn’t he? 

Morgant would keep his word until he was killed, but he knew defeat and death were the most probable outcome. 

Still…for a little while, Caina had made him doubt that certainty. When she had staggered alive out of the burning ruins of the Corsair’s Rest, when she had actually stopped Cassander Nilas, for just a moment Morgant wondered if the legend was true, if she really was the Balarigar. It was an absurd thought. He had seen how the legend had been constructed around her, gathering like a pearl around a piece of sand. 

Still, if the legend suited anyone, it would have been her. From time to time she had made him wonder if something other than final defeat was possible.

But she was mortal, in the end, just as all of them were. Morgant raised his weapons, intending to take down as many of the winged creatures as he could before they killed him…

A blur shot past the railing, rising past the ship, but it wasn’t one of the Grand Master’s winged monsters.

Caina Amalas landed on the deck next to her valikon. 

For a moment Morgant was so astonished that he froze. Surviving the explosion at the Corsair’s Rest was one thing, but this…

“What the hell?” he said. 

Caina snatched up the valikon, the blade erupting into harsh white flames, and she shot forward in a blur, the silver sword flashing. Two of the creatures fell dead in as many heartbeats, and the corsairs rallied, their swords rising and falling. Morgant dashed forward to join the fight as Annarah cast another spell, white fire flashing across the creatures’ armored hides. The charge of the corsairs took the creatures off-guard, but Caina was more effective by far. Somehow she was moving faster than she had ever moved, faster than the winged creatures themselves. She could have given the Kyracian a challenge in a race at the moment.

After a dozen of them fell, the surviving creatures decided to withdraw, leaping from the ship and soaring away. No doubt they had gone to regroup and summon reinforcements. 

Caina stared after them, breathing hard, a few loose strands of black hair dancing in the wind.

“Caina?” said Annarah, taking a careful step forward. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Caina turned, and for the second time, Morgant froze in surprise.

Her eyes were on fire.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Caina’s eyes weren’t burning. Rather it looked as if her eyes had been filled with smokeless flame, a very familiar smokeless flame. The same fire pulsed beneath her skin, seeming to flow through her veins. 

“I knew it,” whispered Annarah.

Morgant looked at her in surprise. 

“I knew you would be the one,” said Annarah, rapt. “I was sure of it.”

“What,” said Morgant, looking back at Caina, “did you do?”

“Samnirdamnus,” said Caina. Her voice had a peculiar echo, as if a second voice, just beyond the edge of hearing, was speaking through her mouth at the same time. “This was what he wanted. Someone he could possess, but could not control. Someone he could use to avoid the restrictions Callatas bound upon him…”

“To bring his power to bear against Callatas,” said Morgant, the Knight of Wind and Air’s scheme flashing before his eyes as he understood at last. It had been a plan a hundred and fifty years in the making, and Morgant had been part of the Knight’s game the entire time. Of course, to an immortal djinni, a hundred and fifty years was an idle afternoon. “So he’s inside your head?”

“Yes,” said Caina.

“Then he’s stuck there, just as the Sifter was,” said Morgant. “Brave of him.”

“It was his plan,” said Caina. “That’s why he was looking for me. That’s why he went to such lengths to save my life. So someone could bring his power to bear against Callatas.”

She sheathed her valikon and looked over the railing, and Morgant followed suit. The
Sandstorm
descended in a gentle arc towards a pier in the Alqaarin Harbor. Behind them, the corsairs watched Caina with a mixture of awe and terror, and Morgant’s lip twitched with amusement. If the world didn’t end in the next hour or so, if they were not all killed, the Balarigar’s legend would grow anew.

Perhaps he would paint portraits of it. 

A war had broken out in the sky. 

The djinn raced past the
Sandstorm
, flying towards the vast cloud of nagataaru. The plume of shadow stirred and twisted like an agitated serpent, and more ribbons of purple flame and shadow broke off and raced to meet the attacking djinn. Lines of misty horsemen and chariots charged at the rippling shadows and specters of purple flame, and soon swords of lightning and smokeless flame clashed against shields of shadow and blades of purple fire, and a constant rumble of thunder rolled over the city.

“Yes, I understand,” said Caina. 

“What did he say?” said Annarah.

“Samnirdamnus said that the djinn are attacking the nagataaru,” said Caina.

“Obviously,” said Morgant.

“That will distract them, keep them from possessing any more of the wraithblood addicts than they already have,” said Caina. “But we must hurry. The nagataaru are stronger than the djinn, and can draw upon Kotuluk Iblis’s power to aid them. The Azure Sovereign has vanished, and most of the powerful djinn nobles are imprisoned in the Desert of Candles.” She turned to Murat, who flinched before her burning gaze. “The djinn will put the ship down soon. Aid us or flee, but do not hinder us.”

Murat spread his hands. “I would not dream of it.” 

###

Caina stepped to the pier, returning to Istarinmul, and a wave of tangled emotions went through her. 

She had hated Istarinmul when she had first come to the city, hated its cruelty, hated its gladiator games, hated the Brotherhood of Slavers and their allies. After all that, it seemed shocking that she was glad to return to Istarinmul. She had made friends here, had saved lives, had won victories, had saved the city from Cassander Nilas’s vengeance.

She had found Kylon again.

And now, looking around, Caina was surprised at how angry she was.

Istarinmul was dying. Here and there plumes of smoke rising from the city, and bodies lay scattered along the piers. The winged creatures had been killing at random, doing Callatas’s work of wiping out the old humanity to clear the way for the nightmares he had created. 

The sight of Istarinmul in chaos and in flames made Caina angrier than she would have thought.

“Yes, you understand,” said Samnirdamnus inside of her head. “This is what the nagataaru would do if left unchallenged. A cosmos of ashes and death.” 

“No,” said Caina, her voice a harsh rasp of denial.

“What?” said Morgant.

Caina had to remember that not everyone else could hear the sardonic voice inside of her skull. 

“To the Golden Palace,” said Caina, glancing over her shoulder. The
Sandstorm
had turned around, heading for the open sea as fast as Murat’s oarsmen could row. The corsairs had elected to forgive the money owed them for escape. “Callatas is there. If we find him and kill him, we can keep this from becoming any worse.”

“A pleasantly simple plan,” said Morgant.

Annarah only nodded. She had seemed astonished when Caina had returned to the deck of the
Sandstorm
, which was a logical reaction. But now there was something else in her expression, something that Caina had never seen there before. 

Hope. A wild, desperate hope.

She remembered what Kylon had told her, how Morgant claimed that Annarah and Nasser had a secret between them. 

Later. If they survived, if they stopped Callatas, Caina could worry about it later. Defeating Callatas was more important than anything else.

“Come on,” said Caina, and she broke into a run, Annarah and Morgant following her. 

###

Kalgri soared over the city alongside Callatas’s pets, her eyes and the Voice’s senses sweeping the alleys and the streets below her.

And there, a few hundred feet below, she spotted Caina and the assassin and the last loremaster of poor burned Iramis. The Voice could not sense Caina, of course, but it could sense Morgant the Razor and Annarah, and Kalgri’s eyes could see Caina’s form well enough, even through the mad chaos as the djinn and the nagataaru resumed their eternal war. 

That meant she could also see the smokeless fire burning in Caina’s eyes. 

“Of course,” she murmured, the great puzzle of Caina’s survival solved at last. 

If a djinni had entered her, Caina would be able to sense Kalgri, but there were thousands of nagataaru battling overhead, and one more wouldn’t make a difference. Nevertheless, Kalgri dropped from the sky and landed on the rooftop of a tavern as Caina and her friends ran along the street below. 

As they did, Kalgri reached into her belt and drew out the rolled shadow-cloak. She slung it over her shoulders, pulling up the cowl, the Voice hissing as she did so. With the cowl up, Kalgri could no longer sense the world around her, but she could still draw upon the Voice’s power. 

She used that power for speed, running in silence as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop, keeping an eye on Caina and the assassin and the loremaster as they headed for the Golden Palace. Kalgri changed direction, hastening towards a building in the Old Quarter that overlooked the Old Bazaar and the most direct path to the Golden Palace. 

It would make the best spot for an ambush.

And then all the power of the djinn and all the cunning of Caina Amalas would not save her from the blade of the Red Huntress. 

Kalgri giggled with anticipation as she ran.

Chapter 22: Reunions

Madness ruled in the sky over Istarinmul, and madness raged through the city’s streets. 

Kylon cut down another of the winged hybrids, the creature collapsing to the street of the Old Quarter and thrashing as it shrank to the gaunt form of a wraithblood addict. Wave after wave of the winged creatures had attacked. 

Yet many of the creatures had withdrawn, flying east towards the massive storm of the djinn and wooden ship they carried. Kylon could not fathom why the Court of the Azure Sovereign had carried a ship with them as they came to war against the nagataaru.

Nevertheless, the sight had set a flare of hope through him.

The ship was an Alqaarin corsair vessel, sleek and deadly. The looked a lot like the
Sandstorm
, the ship that Nasser had hired to take them to Pyramid Isle before the disastrous attack upon the Desert Maiden. And if the ship really was the
Sandstorm
, did that mean Caina was on it? 

Kylon didn’t know, and he wanted to head towards the Alqaarin Harbor where the ship had disappeared, but he did not dare abandon the others.

Because without the valikon and his abilities as a stormdancer, he feared that Prince Sulaman and his companions would have been slaughtered already. 

The bulk of the winged creatures had headed to the east, but the relentless attack had not stopped. Again and again, waves of the creatures attacked, even as the horsemen of storm battled the nagataaru overhead, lightning and fire flashing as the spirits struggled. The Imperial Guards and the Kaltari warriors fought with skill and ferocity, and Claudia cast banishment spells as often as she could, but the winged creatures were simply stronger and faster.

Kylon, Mazyan, and Nasser made up the difference. Nasser’s crystal fist allowed him to crush the skulls of the winged creatures. Mazyan could move just as fast as could the creatures, his djinni lending him speed. Kylon had the abilities of a stormdancer, and he had the valikon. The wraithblood addicts, if anything remained of their minds after they had been overshadowed by the summoned nagataaru, might not have known to fear the valikon, but the nagataaru did, and they flinched away from the valikon’s white fire. 

Step by bloody step they fought their way down the main street of the Anshani Quarter, making their way to the mansions and the merchant halls of the Old Quarter. The Ghosts of Istarinmul made themselves useful as well. Damla and Nerina sent crossbow bolts at any winged creature that swooped too low, shooting it through the wings. When it crashed, either Azaces or Tomazain took off its head, or Malcolm stepped forward and crushed its skull with a single swing of his massive hammer. 

They left dead Kaltari warriors and Istarish soldiers behind with every skirmish, and Kylon feared that they would be unable to reach the Golden Palace, let alone the Old Quarter, before the creatures overwhelmed them. 

Yet the concerted attack Kylon feared did not appear. He could not understand why, but the answer came to him as he glanced upward in search of more enemies. 

The battle raging overhead held the attention of the nagataaru. 

They had been descending in waves, seeking out wraithblood addicts to possess. There had been tens of thousands of wraithblood addicts in Istarinmul. Based on the production capacity of the wraithblood laboratories she had destroyed, Caina had told Kylon she thought there might be as many as fifty thousand wraithblood addicts in Istarinmul. Fifty thousand of those winged creatures could have conquered the world. Certainly, they would have had no trouble slaughtering Tanzir’s army.